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Health panel to discuss rollout

The state House of Representatives Health Committee has scheduled a Wednesday hearing to discuss the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.

And Warren County will be doubly represented.

In addition to State Representative Kathy Rapp who chairs the Health Committee, one of the presenters is slated to be Warren General Hospital CEO Rick Allen.

The hearing had been set for Monday morning but was rescheduled to Wednesday at 8 a.m.

“The Wolf administration has failed the people of Pennsylvania in deploying our supply of the COVID-19 vaccine,” Rapp said in a Facebook post announcing the hearing. “As of today, Pennsylvania ranks an embarrassing 46th in the country in terms of vaccine deployment efficiency and has deployed only roughly 50% or 965,000 doses of 1.9 million vaccines received.”

Allen is one of several individuals who will be presenting virtual presentations. Multiple officials with the Department of Health will testify as will Susan Friedberg Kalson, CEO of Squirrel Hill Health Center and representatives from Walgreens and CVS Health, the entities contracted by the federal government to help with the vaccine rollout.

Rapp described Wednesday’s event as an “oversight hearing” aimed to “examine the Commonwealth’s lagging COVID-19 vaccine deployment.

“We need a plan to get these vaccines distributed, we need vaccination sites open, and we need to schedule far more people for the shots. I trust those who testify on Monday will shine a light on these challenges.”

The hearing is set — pending technical difficulties — to be livestreams at pahousegop.com and reprapp.com.

This hearing isn’t the only effort in the General Assembly aimed at the vaccine process.

Washington Co. Rep. Tim O’Neal has proposed legislation — quickly sent to the Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee — to enlist the support of the National Guard in the rollout.

The text of the bill aims to “establish and operate in each county a site for the mass distribution and administration of any vaccine for COVID-19, including the administration of the vaccine to individuals by members of the Pennsylvania National Guard.”

O’Neal says the National Guard “has both the infrastructure, human capital and logistics” to ensure the process unfolds in a “timely fashion and efficiently.”

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